


It's Technically an Exorcism but Let's Not Call it That

by scrapmetal



Series: FMA Epilogue Fics [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Gen, Nonbinary Alphonse Elric, greedling gets seperated, oh right, oh right greed lives too that's important LMAO, this took me so long lmao, very background panwin again :pensive:, what else do you put in these tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 13:17:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18074117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrapmetal/pseuds/scrapmetal
Summary: Edward and Alphonse Elric get a long awaited letter all the way from Xing while they're adventuring in the west. Mei Chang is ready to start the mysterious project she's been working on for years now, and she wants the brothers to come over to help. They travel all the way to Xing and what they find there is that they're technically going to help preform an exorcism, but let's not call it that.





	It's Technically an Exorcism but Let's Not Call it That

**Author's Note:**

> here it is... i feel like i've been working on this for months and. oh wait! this has been in my drafts since october and it's... *looks at watch* ...march. so i have. at least it's long.

 

Getting the mail was always a happy event for the Elric brothers, just because they were exploring the world abroad didn’t mean that they weren’t in contact with anyone back home. There was a good amount of mail included in their weekly package, but when Al saw that there was a letter from Xing they got a bit excited.  It either meant Ed got some secret court drama from his pen-pal Ling, or that Al got a progress letter about Mei’s secret project.

 

Mei couldn’t just  _ announce _ what she was working on to the public of course. Most people didn't even know that the subject matter of the project existed in the first place _. _ There were rumors, naturally- an elusive and shadowy figure with wild hair and a wicked smile stalking the grounds of the royal palace, either tormenting the nobles or protecting them depending on who you asked. Despite that, no one knew exactly who or what it was, if it even existed in the first place. If word got out that the emperor of Xing was part time possessed by the embodiment of greed, things would get a bit complicated, and so Mei’s letters always arrived in code. 

 

Al casually glanced over Ed’s shoulder at the envelopes he was shuffling around and focused on the distinctly ornate royal Xingese envelope, looking for the name of whom it was addressed to. Once they spotted it past Ed’s big head they smiled to themself. 

 

The brothers got back from the post office to their hotel right at dinner-time. They happily read their weekly update from the Rockbells and a heavily annotated copy of the Central Chronicle sent by Riza while they ate. Al was very visibly impatient for dinner to be over. They shoveled food into their mouth as Ed read the letters out loud, only pausing to comment occasionally. They eyed the unopened letter to Xing and the moment they finished eating they leapt out of their chair, grabbed the envelope, and ran upstairs to their room to start reading it. As they left, Ed rolled his eyes and grumbled something about Al never letting him help decode things anymore (which was completely untrue, Mei’s letters were an anomaly among the piles of alchemic papers they had collected and slowly deciphered during their travels). 

 

By the time Ed made his way up to the room, Al was about a third of the way through the letter, bouncing on the balls of their feet, having not bothered to sit down as they worked. 

 

“Sometimes I wish Ling would code his letters in like, a reasonable way.” Ed began to complain good-naturedly as he entered, even though he didn't get a letter from Ling that week. “I mean, the bastard doesn't  _ really _ code his letters, but goddamn is the drama he sends hard to read sometimes. He can’t just say whatever the fuck he means! I understand that he avoids saying things outright just in case the letter gets into the wrong hands, but I mean he could at  _ least _ use an actual fucking code!”

 

Al turned to look at Ed with a tiny grin. “I don’t think that you would be able to trust Ling to actually bother to code his letters, especially with the sort of rigorous codes we’re used to. Anyways, the decoded letter would probably be written the same way he writes his other letters, I think that's just how he writes.”

 

Ed laughed, shaking his head. “You’re really mean to Ling sometimes you know.”

 

Al gasped in mock offense, covering their mouth in feigned shock. “Me? Mean? Since when! I’m the sweetest baby brother that’s ever lived!”

 

Ed rolled his eyes. “Anyone who  _ really _ knows you knows that you’re just as much of an asshole as I am--  _ allegedly _ .” He was quick to tack on the allegedly, not about to let this hypothetical blame go unquestioned.

 

Al turned back to the letter, pouting. “Wow, a low blow, comparing me to you.”

 

Ed sighed. “This is exactly what I’m talking about.”

 

* * *

 

It was getting a bit late by the time Al finally deciphered the entirety of the letter and read it over a few times, just in case. Ed was asleep on his bed, watching Al mumble to themself in Xingese proved to be pretty uninteresting after a while. It was still only about seven though, so Al brought the decoded letter over to the bed and tapped Ed’s shoulder a few times. He woke immediately, but not too happily. 

 

“I was actually having a nice dream for once Al, did you  _ really _ have to wake me up?”

 

Al winced. “Sorry…” The two were both plagued by nightmares, and Al understood how much of a luxury good dreams were. “If it makes you feel any better, I have some exciting news!”

 

Ed frowned, looking at the sheet of paper in Al’s hand. “You decoded Mei's letter… Nice.”

 

“No idiot,” Al rolled their eyes. “Guess again, it's news from Mei.”

 

“Mei… Wait. Did she figure it all out? Is she done?”

 

Al grinned. “Pretty much! She just needs to spend a week or two double and triple checking everything. The most exciting part though is that she wants us to be there when she actually goes through with the whole procedure.”

 

Ed frowned drowsily. “But we're in the middle of nowhere Kore right now, Xing is like… A bajillion kilometers away.”

 

“Yep, and that's why we're leaving as soon as possible! Unless you don't want to go, of course.”

 

Ed buried his head under his pillow. “As long as you let me sleep…” He mumbled.

 

Al snatched the pillow from Ed’s desperate grasp and held it up above their head. “That's a deal! You should probably change into something a bit more comfortable before going to sleep for the night… And also take care of some basic hygiene. Future Ed’ll kill you if he wakes up tomorrow in that.”

 

Ed grumbled a bit but complied, picking up his pajamas and shuffling into the small bathroom to change and take a shower. Al smiled as Ed passed and began to reread the letter again. 

 

* * *

 

Getting back to Amestris was a bit harder for the brothers than they imagined, but they were back, at least for now. A few days at Rush Valley was way too short of a visit, and Winry was all too happy to remind the two of that fact the entire time they were there. 

 

“It's important stuff, Winry! She said to come as soon as we could!” Al argued when Winry brought it up while they helped make dinner the first night. 

 

Winry looked like she was about to clobber Al with the whisk she was using. Luckily for Al it was covered in dough. “More important than family? I swear Al, it's like you two don't even want to be here. Three days! That's not even enough to get properly adjusted to the time zone!”

 

“The train to Xing only runs twice a month! If we left any later we’d have to wait 17 days!”

 

“Good luck with that argument, Al.” Paninya ducked into the kitchen with a laugh, walking over to her wife to give her a kiss on the cheek. “You two need help? Looking at the mess in here I would almost guess you guys are cooking for twelve people, not five.”

 

Winry laughed and leaned over to kiss Paninya back. “You're seriously underestimating how much the brothers can eat, Pan. Maybe it's a good thing they aren't staying too long.”

 

“Ah yes!” Al exclaimed. “That's  _ exactly _ why we're not staying long. I knew you'd come around eventually, Win!”

 

* * *

 

Al would be lying if they said that they weren’t nervous at the prospect of seeing Ling again. Not that they had anything against Ling, they actually quite liked him. It was just that Ling sort of happened to be the immortal emperor of Xing, the ruler of the largest empire in the world that had won his seat on the throne by finding the secret to immortality and claiming it for himself. Nothing much. 

 

The brothers were escorted from the small train station on the outskirts of Xing all the way to right outside the large doors of the throne room in the center of the royal palace. The trip just from the train station to the capital was a few days, and in the end it was almost a week since the two were in Rush Valley. They were there though, they made it. And as the massive doors strained open, the Elrics saw the emperor for the first time in years.

 

Al vaguely remembered the last time they saw Ling. He was sixteen, covered in grime and shirt almost turned to shreds, revealing the strange tank top and nodes fused to his flesh as a consequence of being a homunculus. Seeing him now, Al wondered how he could possibly be the same person. He sat atop a throne with perfect posture, silk robes long, ornate, and flowing. His signature bangs were pulled back behind a headdress, and his hand was placed on his knee so it proudly displayed Greed’s ouroboros tattoo. 

 

As Ed and Al entered the throne room, Ling's eyes opened slightly. His look was stern, filled with power and authority. Al’s heart skipped a beat and they realized that maybe they were facing a Greed in possession of an entire country, but then he laughed, and it was a  _ very _ Ling laugh.

 

“It's good to see you two again!” He said, his voice just as light as when they first met him. He smiled brilliantly and stood up, arms outstretched in greeting as he slowly walked down and off the throne towards the brothers. 

 

Al laughed right along, feeling a bit silly about being intimidated, but right beside them Ed frowned and tapped his foot as Ling approached. What he was annoyed at, Al had no idea, but they had a hunch that it might be because he was feeling silly as well. Either way, Ling was pretty good at ignoring him.

 

“Alphonse! It's great to see you looking so healthy! You put quite a bit of meat on those bones, I'm proud!” Ling wrapped Al in a hug, which was enthusiastically reciprocated. 

 

“Ah, thank you so much!! It's good to see you too Ling! Congrats on becoming emperor! Even if it happened a while ago, and we knew you'd be here last time we saw you.”

 

Ling grinned and faced Ed. “And Ed! You've grown… A bit. Maybe just enough to make up for your platform boots.”

 

“I'm going to punch you in the face and you’ll be glad the fist I use is made of flesh.”

 

Ling smiled. “I'm sure my guards are more than happy to hear that declaration, especially Lan Fan.”

 

Al instinctively looked around the room to try to see if they could pinpoint Lan Fan while Ed just kept glaring at Ling. It was all very new, but also so familiar. Ling was Ling and the brothers were there to do dizzyingly complex alchemy… or at least Al was.

 

“Anyways, I have the entire day off! Isn't that exciting? I haven't had a day off all year.” Ling said as he motioned for the Elrics to follow him out of the throne room. He paused for a second in a small room just outside to take off the intricate headdress and thick, expensive robes he wore on the throne. Underneath he wore a simple black outfit not unlike the one the brothers last saw him in (before it got destroyed, of course).

 

They small group left the room and Ling chatted about meaningless things as he led the brothers deep into the palace, hurrying through dozens of maze-like hallways before finally stopping at an inconsequential door after passing maybe a hundred exactly like it. 

 

Ling's cheerful expression dropped for a second as he scanned the hallway, and then it returned as he opened the door to reveal a full on alkahestry lab. 

 

Al had never seen anything like it. They'd seen plenty of alchemy labs, that was part of the job description. But alkahestry… Al could already tell they had a lot to learn. There were some familiar aspects to the lab, the small library of books in the back, the labeled containers of specific rarer elements, the periodic table on the wall, the loose papers with half sketched out transmutation circles and chemical equations, but there were some key differences that Al noticed immediately. Dozens of vials of liquids Al couldn't identify were intermixed with the few rare elements, the periodic table was flanked with posters of the human body and its different systems, knives and needles and other specialized objects were found among sticks of chalk. The closest thing to this Al ever saw in the west was the unpleasant discovery of a chimera lab, and this was far less disturbing than one of those. 

 

To complete the busy picture of the lab was Mei standing next to a table with what looked like a human body on it covered by a sheet. She had a few knives in one hand and a small journal in the other, though it seemed like she was only really casually reading the journal.

 

As the brothers and Ling entered the room, Mei looked up with a smile and seemed to only then realize she was holding knives, she sheathed them quickly before speaking. “Hi! It's so good to see you two again! It's been way too long.” She put the journal in her pocket and moved over to the end of the table. “Um, I know you just got in here but we're going to have to move to another room for the actual transmutation. The circles just won't fit in here, it's a bit too cluttered.”

 

Ed frowned. “Circles? Plural?”

 

Mei shot a look of disapproval at Al. “I included this  _ very fundamental _ detail in my letters. Haven't you been showing them to Ed?”

 

Al shrugged sheepishly. “We've been busy? I just shared updates about general progress, not really the entire process behind it all.”

 

Mei muttered something under her breath before motioning for everyone to leave the room. The group complied, and Mei started pushing the table towards a room a few doors down the hallway. 

 

This room was completely empty, a stark contrast to the lab they just left. Mei rolled the table to the far side of the room and dumped the body and sheet onto the floor with a sigh before she pushed the table outside and closed the door.

 

Everyone else watched this somewhat ominous business silently but curiously.

 

Ling was the first to speak. “Okay. Can you please just explain what  _ exactly  _ is going to happen to me tonight?” Except wait, no, that wasn't Ling, it was Greed. 

 

Ed let out a surprised grunt as he noticed the shift. “Oh hey Greed. I was wondering when you'd show up.”

 

Greed cracked his neck. “Yeah. I would've loved to greet you back in the throne room, but then you would've recognized it was me, said my name, blah blah blah start a shitton of rumors about Ling having a secret double life or something.”

 

“Ah yeah, I guess greeting us would be a bit different than your court interventions, we both know when it's you.” Ed laughs, recalling some of Ling's letters. “Well, I guess we won't have to deal with that for much longer.”

 

“HAH! Yeah! I can finally get out of those shitty meetings full of snobby nobodies.” Greed frowned slightly. “Although I suppose now I'll have to actually integrate the ‘persona’ brought to the table by Greed into my usual arsenal. People would catch on if I suddenly stopped violently forcing people to find a compromise to their petty drama if they dragged things on a bit too long. I've always been hesitant to do it but since it's what people expect from me now… Whatever. You can figure that out later. Right now I just want my own goddamn body! Isn't that what we're here for?!?”

 

Al blinked as Greed and Ling casually conversed among themselves. It was amazing how natural it had gotten over the years, Al remembered that during their brief interactions with them before that a switch was a lot more violent, like they were fighting for control. Even when one of them retreated peacefully, there was a distinct air of reluctance to it. This display played out more like they were sort of half fumbling for control lazily and half waiting for the other to finish. Al was almost sorry that they weren't going to need to do it anymore. Almost. They knew the two were very excited to be in their own separate bodies again, and they supposed that regretting splitting up Greedling was like when a certain someone was confused why they ever wanted to leave their armored body back in the day.

 

Mei gestured to the floor. “Since two of us don't even know the basics of the procedure tonight, I say we all sit down and review.”

 

The four others (counting both Greed and Ling) muttered their approvals and sat down in a small circle with Mei. 

 

Mei sighed a bit. “Alright, I'll explain this simply first. Then I'll give you and Al my notebook, Ed. It's decoded and in Amestrian just for you two. And I mean, I guess Ling can try to understand some of that if he really wants. And I’m sorry I know you can't read, Greed. I guess you're a bit left out.”

 

Greed surfaced on Ling's face just to visibly pout at Mei for that comment. “Just get on with it, no need to worm the fact I can't read into everything like you always do.”

 

Mei frowned. “I don't work it into  _ everything. _ ” 

 

Greed rolled his eyes. “Sure.”

 

“Alright.” Mei started, ignoring Greed. “Tonight we’re going to transfer the mass of souls that makes up Greed into its own body while still keeping Ling's soul in his own body.”

 

“Question, how exactly are you going to prevent a trip to the Gate of Truth?” Ed interrupted, hand raised. 

 

“That's one of the reasons Mei contacted me, actually.” Al interjected with a glance towards Mei, who nodded for them to continue. “Unfortunately there's not a 100% guarantee that Mei won't end up there, but this procedure is more like separating chimeras than human transmutation or soul bonding and I've never had a gate run-in doing that. Also, from the vague accounts we've gotten from Greed we've concluded its likely Father never visited the gate when he made the homunculi. He wasn't human to begin with so that may be irrelevant but it's the best we've got. In the end, we’ll just have to hope that if she does get dragged in, Greed’s philosopher's stone will cover any rebounds.”

 

Ed sighed. “Not as concrete as I expected… But as long as you're okay with the possibility, Mei.”

 

Mei nodded, determined. “Of course. No turning back now.” She relaxed a bit before moving on. “Anyways, here's how this is going to work. There'll be two circles, connected with the dragon’s pulse via some specialty stakes I've made just for this. One circle for Greedling and one for Greed’s future body. I've already made a rough doll, which is what's under the sheet. Don't look at it unless you want nightmares.”

 

Everyone immediately turned to look at the sheet. Ling stood up, but before he could walk over to see what exactly what was so nightmarish about the doll he hesitated and Mei gave him a look that asked if he  _ really  _ wanted to see. He sat back down. 

 

“Greed’ll look just fine after we actually get him in the doll,” Mei continued, “and apparently I won't even have to mold his face, it comes prepackaged in his soul cluster if his memories of the creation of the other homunculi are correct.”

 

“I mean, when pops made Gluttony I don't think he ever really expected him to turn out lookin’ like that. The nodes were also a surprise to him, I don't think he had much of an idea of what we'd look like when he made us” Greed supplied. It wasn't… Amazing evidence, but he tugged out his collar to show off one of the red nodes that had shown up after he was put in Ling.

 

Mei nodded. “The first step will be to isolate Ling's soul so that we don't just kill off his body and move them both to the new one. That'd create a whole new set of issues. After we secure Ling's soul, we’ll take it out and bond it to a sheet of iron--”

 

“Waitwaitwait  _ what? _ ” Ling sputtered, shaking. His eyes were wide with panic. “You didn't say  _ I  _ was leaving my body at all!” 

 

Mei shrugged. “It'll only be a for a few seconds, just until Greed’s in his own body. Al did it for years, you'll be fine. Plus, I won't be pulling your soul back from any gates and your body’ll be here the entire time, safe and sound.”

 

Ling groaned and Al gave him an awkward sympathy pat. They didn't like the idea for obvious personal reasons, but they has agreed months ago that it was the best way to keep Ling's soul safe. 

 

“If you want I can transmute the sheet into something that can move around when you're in it!”

 

Ling sighted and flopped dramatically onto Al’s lap. “I'm so sorry that I ever asked you how to bond souls to things, I thought I wanted it, but now that I'm getting the opportunity I'm terrified!”

 

“...You want the mobile option?”

 

“Yeah… I guess that'll be better than nothing.”

 

Mei cleared her throat. “After that, I'll siphon Greed’s philosopher's stone to the doll, slow enough as to not overload the circles. As that happens, the doll will then take the material it's made of and use some of the philosopher's stone’s energy to repair itself into a proper body using the information it's used in the past for repairs. The moment Greed’s stone completely leaves Ling's body, I’ll have Al return Ling's soul to it so that it’s never soulless long enough to start dying. Then it'll be done!” 

 

Ed was tearing apart the notebook already by the time Mei finished her speech, Al hadn't realized that he managed to snatch it from her. At least Ling seemed over the whole soul bonding thing… Or that was just Greed’s face at the moment. 

 

Al smiled. “When do we start?”

 

Mei clapped her hands together. “I'll start drawing the circles now!”

 

As Mei drew, Ed continued to devour the notebook and Al tried for a few seconds to talk to Greedling before realizing they were arguing with each other. Not wanting to just sit there and wait, Al got up and picked up the sheet of metal Ling would be bonded to and started contemplating how they'd transmute it. They sat down facing away from Ling, making sure he wouldn't be able to see the final result from where he was. 

 

Finally, when every chalk line was drawn and every stake planted, Mei snatched the notebook out of Ed's hands to double check her work. Ed just blinked like he had been woken from a nap and made a small sound of defeat. 

 

When she was certain that nothing was wrong with the setup, Mei motioned to Greedling to move into the free circle. When they didn't move, Mei sighed and dragged them over herself.

 

“I guess I can't escape my fate.” Ling sighed dramatically, tears welling up in his eyes. “If I don't make it… Tell Greed… That he's an asshole-- Shut UP Ling oh my  _ god _ .” Greed stared at Mei with the most determination she'd ever seen from him. “Free me Mei. Take him out.”

 

Mei laughed. “You're both so insufferable. Are you done with the steel, Al? You can show it off as I start isolating Ling's soul.” 

 

“Alright, sounds like a plan.” Al looked back from their work to see a soft glow start from an inner part of the circle Greedling sat in. 

 

Turning around properly, Al revealed an intricate statue of Ling about two feet tall. It was wearing a chain mail replica of what he wore back when the Elrics first met him. Al moved each of the limbs, the neck, and the torso, showing off its flexibility. The transmutation marks were very faint, showing how slow they performed the actual transmutation to make it. 

 

“I'm actually pretty proud of this, a lot of the design choices come from some of the things I found I didn't like about the armor, ignoring the obvious unavoidable ones.”

 

“Alright, this makes me feel a bit better about everything.” Ling admitted, “Why isn't there a much of a face though? Didn't you always used to wish you had one?”

 

“Uncanny valley is a dangerous place to be.” Al responded cryptically, glancing over at Mei to see how she was doing.

 

“I have no idea what that means but it sounds real so I trust you.”

 

Al gave Ling a wink and a smile before walking over just outside the circle, hitting Ling on the top of his head to knock him out, and taking out a knife to carefully slice a shallow cut on his finger. 

 

Al drew a seal with Ling's blood on the back of the statue, concentrating on the soul Mei had isolated in Ling's body. A few seconds later they felt the statue tense and come alive, and then it turned around and clocked Al in the jaw. 

 

“Rude!!” Al yelped, dropping Ling. 

 

“You just knocked me out and stuffed my soul into a statue! Without warning! Mei didn't even say anything about it when we were going over things! I think it's a pretty fair treatment all things considered.” 

 

Al frowned, trying their best to concentrate on the fact that they got punched more than the fact that Ling was soul bound because of them. It was such a strange situation, suddenly being on the other side of it all, but Al figured it was only a matter of time before they got back into this side of alchemy. 

 

After calming down, Ling took a few moments to examine his temporary body. “I do have to admit that the level of detail you put into this is pretty amazing, I can't believe you came up with it on the spot!”

 

“Well… To be honest the idea’s been kicking around in my head ever since I learned that this was going to be a step,” Al admitted, rubbing the back of their neck in embarrassment.

 

Ling walked around the circle with his body, watching the red electric discharge crackle as Mei started to remove Greed’s souls. 

 

“It's really weird to see my body like this.” Ling mused, frown in his voice. “Especially because I'm so small.”

 

Ed's head snapped up at the word small, only just realizing how far they were into the process. He grinned evilly as he spotted Ling's temporary form, and Ling probably would be terrified of the expression if he didn't know what it was a reaction to. 

 

“Now… what do we have here? It appears that I’m  _ finally  _ taller than you, Ling! If only I could see your face…” Ed stood up and towered over Ling's small metal body, cackling. 

 

“Ed this is only going to last for about a minute.” 

 

“So I must savor this wonderful feeling of being the tallest person in the room while I can!”

 

Al cleared their throat.

 

“You're sitting down, it doesn't count.”

 

“If you say so, brother…” Al said with an eye roll. 

 

It was at that moment when the door happened to open. Everyone jumped and the transmutation slowed for a few dangerous beats before returning full force when Mei realized who it was. 

 

“Chang? What's going on in here?”

 

“Hey! Lan Fan! You made it!” Ling exclaimed, waving and jumping so she'd notice him. 

 

Lan Fan looked down at Ling for a few seconds, fully processed his current situation, and then glared at Mei.

 

“I'm putting Greed into his own body, I thought you knew that.” Mei responded simply, trying not to get distracted from the transmutation again. Moving so much energy along the dragon’s pulse was taking longer than she'd expected, and accidentally stopping the transmutation and releasing the energy would be dangerous for everyone in the room. 

 

Lan Fan frowned. “I did. What I  _ didn't  _ know was that you'd  _ Alphonse _ the Emperor!” She glanced over at Al, “no offense intended.”

 

Al shrugged. “None taken, it's accurate,” they frowned. “No wait, that was the wrong thing to say, I'm supposed to be on Mei's side…” They cleared their throat and vaguely started imitating a radio host. “This situation, unlike my old predicament, is extremely temporary and easily reversible! No fuss about finding bodies and no chance of alchemic rebounds! The amount of mental trauma Ling will take from this will be a mere fraction of what I experienced, and I'm fine! Somewhat! There's absolutely no need to worry.”

 

Lan Fan sighed and glared at Al. “I think I'm going to have stay in here for the rest of this, clearly it's more dangerous than anything that could happen out there.”

 

“Well we're almost done anyways,” Mei said distractedly, focus completely locked onto the transmutation. “Al, prepare to break the seal.”

 

Al nodded and grabbed a hold of Ling's shoulders quickly to move him in front of them. 

 

“Three… Two… One.” 

 

Al placed both of their hands above the small blood seal on Ling's back, deactivating it with a light show of alchemic discharge. At the same time, the main transmutation slowed to a stop, leaving an unconscious but no longer disembodied Ling and red lightning fizzling under the sheet covering Greed. 

 

Everyone's attention shifted towards the sheet, they were all anxious to see what Greed’s new body looked like. 

 

There was a groan, and then: “What the  _ fuck  _ was in our dinner tonight?”

 

Al coughed to cover up a chuckle.

 

“...Ling?” Greed asked before he pulled the sheet off of his head and sat up, a look of utter confusion plastered on his new face. “Oh. Right.”

 

No one was quite expecting the face they saw on Greed, the Elrics were imagining Greed 1.0 again. Lan Fan and Mei, who had never seen the original, honestly just expected a Ling clone. In the end, it was a little bit of both. His jaw was more square and nose sharper than Ling’s, but his features definitely weren't as dramatic as the original’s. His eyes looked just like they did when he was in control of Ling's body, they were thin, the irises a dark lavender with strange slitted pupils. These strange eyes and his sharp teeth gave away the fact he was a homunculus… Along with the nodes going across his chest and the weird tank top fused to his skin. His hair was long and unkempt, but everyone knew he'd end up cutting it, as he often threatened to cut Ling’s without him knowing.

 

“Stop staring at me,” Greed grumbled. 

 

“Congratulations on the face!” Al said with a poorly contained chuckle after a few beats of silence, they were the only person who actually found it funny. 

 

Greed sighed after no one else spoke for a bit. “Yeah yeah... I'm sexy. I get it.”

 

Everyone made sure not to look directly at him after that.

 

Ling woke up next, groaning with his head in his hands. “Did you really survive five years of that, Al?”

 

“I'm not really sure how I did it either, welcome back.”

 

Ling smiled at Al and then looked over at Greed, eyes widening a bit. “Oh hey. This is kinda weird.”

 

Greed frowned. “Yeah. You don't look like you're the size of an ant anymore, I don't like it.”

 

“I don't like how much you look like my estranged older brother that lives in a trash can but we can't all get what we want.”

 

Greed stood up with a snarl, presumably to pummel Ling (which was something he was never able to do before), but Mei interrupted his march. 

 

“Hey, hey! Before you go give Ling a well deserved punch in the face I have to let you know that I used a lot of your philosopher's stone in the transmutation. This means that you're relatively low on excess energy for healing and the shield so you're going to have to use them  _ very sparingly  _ in order to live maybe… 70 more years.”

 

Greed gaped. “70 years?? That's absolutely nothing!”

 

Mei shrugged. “Hey! The shield and healing take an exorbitant amount of energy, so if you truly never use them you might live twice or three times longer, which I kinda doubt you can manage.”

 

Greed stopped completely, forgetting about pummeling Ling. “Damn... I always knew I'm not truly immortal but I always assumed I would get to at  _ least _ a thousand if no one really determined and skilled tried to kill me all the way.”

 

“Awww…” Ling started, sugary sweet sarcasm turned to max. “Now you can grow old and die just like the rest of us! How sweet.” 

 

Greed suddenly remembered that he was going to punch Ling. 

 

Lan Fan frowned and glanced at Mei. “Are we done here?”

 

Mei shrugged. “Pretty much, I just have to scrub the floors to make sure no one can copy the transmutation circles. There probably isn't a going to be a situation anytime within our lifetimes when anyone will have to do anything like this again, but the circles have runes and patterns often used in human transmutation. Better safe than sorry.”

 

Lan Fan nodded and broke her professional stoicism with a small smile. “Should we eat dinner then?”

 

Ling jumped up and cheered. “I know a good place we can go? It's a bit out of the way and kind of grimy but it has the  _ best  _ noodles,” he explained to the Elrics conversationally.

 

“Yeah ‘n the owner’s cool too, we sneak out at night sometimes and eat there, he keeps it open late just for us,” Greed added. 

 

“Because we buy a ton of food and tip well!” Ling finished.

 

“It makes my job a pain in the ass,” Lan Fan grumbled quietly.

 

Al laughed at the display. It wasn't all too different than what was going on before, just a bit easier to track. “Don't you have like… Royal cooks here or whatever?”

 

Ling walked towards the door and impatiently waited for everyone else to get up. He was clearly very excited for dinner. “Yeah, but then I have to be the emperor, and that's no fun.” He stared to lead the group back through the maze of a palace as they finally joined him.

 

The group talked as they left, a lot more chatty than when they arrived (probably because they doubled the number of members able to speak). The night was quite a happy little reunion at the small restaurant… a happy reunion and a happy separation in Ling and Greed’s case. Greed realized that after all that time he only learned how to understand Xingese and got Ling to speak it for him, Al was able to show off how horrifyingly fast they ate, Lan Fan laughed so hard she made everyone but Ling go silent in terror… An overall second most spectacular welcome to Xing for the Elrics, after the whole transmutation thing of course. 

 

The Elrics weren't quite planning on staying in Xing too long when they originally left, but as the days turned into weeks turned into months they realized that their quick race out of the west concluded their adventures there, and that there were plenty of things worth staying in Xing for. Sometimes adventures are nicer with your friends.  

**Author's Note:**

> okay okay the ending is a little anticlimatic but that's mostly because it leads somewhat into my [main fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16572569/chapters/38833217) so read that if you want more of these idiots in the same context.


End file.
